USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 28
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RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
young. He entered the Creek War as a private, was elected captain and then colonel of a regiment of volun- teer mounted riflemen. Hle was in two engagements and bore himself bravely. His term of service having expired, he returned to Tennessee before the end of the war, and on this slight circumstance was founded the charge of cow- ardice and desertion subsequently made by the " Nashville Union." Before the Creek War Cannon had attracted Jackson's attention. Ile was on the jury that tried Mag- ness,1 the father of the man who shot Patton Anderson. Jackson, a warm and enthusiastic friend of Anderson, spared no exertion to have Magness convicted. He was acquitted. Jackson shook his finger in the face of the obstinate young juror, and said, "I'll mark you, young man." During the Creek War fresh fuel was added to Jackson's prejudice. In a letter which appeared on the fourth of July, 1821, in the "Nashville Clarion," the writer asks, " Is it not known that he and Colonel Cannon have not been very friendly since the Creek War?" In 1814 Cannon made his appearance on the political field as a successor to Felix Grundy, who had resigned his seat in Congress. With the exception of the 15th Congress, when he was a commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians, having been appointed by President Monroe, Cannon remained in Congress until 1823, when he voluntarily retired. Whilst in Congress he excited the indignation of Jackson's friends by denying some state- ments in the life of Jackson begun by Reed but finished by Eaton. He also voted against maintaining the military establishment as Jackson desired. He addressed a letter of explanation to Jackson which the latter, such was the currently accepted rumor, trampled under foot. When Cannon was a candidate for governor in 1827, against
1 Parton, in his Life of Jackson, vol. i. p. 344, in relating an in- cident that occurred at the trial of the son, spells the name Magness. In Cannon's speech it is spelled Magnus.
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Blount and Houston, Jackson's sympathies were avowedly for either as against him. Naturally Cannon was not in high favor with the national administration which .came into power the year following.
David Crockett was another Lucifer of republicanism who became one of the morning stars of Whiggery in Tennessee. Perhaps it would be true to say that Crock- ett was the first prominent Whig in this State. He was born in East Tennessee, and was reared in the narrow cir- cumstances of those times, without education or the means of intellectual cultivation. He moved to Elk Creek near the mouth of Mulberry. From here he entered the army and served in the Creek War. It is probable, though borne out by no direct proof, that Crockett contracted a prejudice against his commander during these campaigns which made it an easy matter for him, when elected to Congress, to array himself against Jackson. As early as 1823 he voted for John Williams and against Jackson for senator. Returning home he again removed to Shoal Creek in Giles County, where he became colonel of mili- tia, and was elected a member of the General Assembly. Having suffered some reverses, he again removed, this time to the banks of the Obion, where he was in 1823 again elected to the state legislature. In 1825 some practical joke in the town of Jackson spread the report that he was a candidate for Congress. Angered by the implied ridicule, he at once came forward and made a vig- orous canvass. Though defeated, he laid the foundations upon which he was elected in 1827. When he entered Congress it was as a Republican. But his indignation was aroused during his second term by the course of the ad- ministration towards the Cherokee Indians in Georgia.
His violent denunciation of Jackson's perfidy incensed the friends of the president. When he returned home to seek a reelection, he found that the storm had been raised. He himself says, "he was hunted like a wild beast, and in
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this hunt every little newspaper in the district and every little pin-hook lawyer was engaged." Crockett was de- feated by a small majority. In 1833 he was again elected, after a stubborn contest. Ile voted with the Whigs for a protective tariff, for internal improvements, to renew the charter of the United States Bank, while Bell was still dealing his heaviest blows against the American system. He signed the letter of the 19th of December, 1834, ealling on White to be a candidate for the presidency.
Jackson's defeat of General John Williams for the Sen- ate, in 1823-1824, embittered his adherents. He had been in the Creek War and was very popular, especially in East Tennessee. Scattered here and there were men like McNairy and Jesse Benton, in whom old wounds still rankled. Indeed, Jesse Benton's hatred of Jackson was so fervent, so malignant, so active, and so futile that it
became amusing. It was suggestive of the burlesque representations on Vaudeville stages of Ajax defying the gods. In 1824 he was a candidate for elector in the Western District. If elected, he promised to vote for Crawford. If it should be necessary to change his vote, for Clay. He wrote a letter to the editor of the " Whig," proposing to examine the lives and conduct of presiden- tial candidates. " All I ask is that the people shall have light. I owe a duty to my God and to my country, which I will discharge." Being refused the privilege of performing this duty through the columns of the " Whig," he published a pamphlet. This contained thirty-two specifications. It was extensively copied by the organs of the Adams, Clay, and Crawford factions. It created a great commotion in Tennessee, and elicited answers from Mayor W. B. Lewis and others. But no one proposed to bring the implacable pamphleteer to terms.1
1 In the Old Times Papers by James D. Davis, a fight between Jesse Benton and Jackson at the Old Bell Tavern in Memphis is men- tioned. Jackson appears to have had the advantage. Parton does not refer to this. Davis says he had it from Jesse Benton himself.
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In 1827 John Bell and Felix Grundy were pitted against each other for Congress. Both were avowed friends of Jackson, Grundy perhaps a little more vocifer- ous than Bell. Grundy was then fifty years of age, twenty years older than his competitor. Born in Berkeley County, Virginia, he had removed, when two years of age, to Brownsville in Pennsylvania, and the next year to Kentucky. Here he received a substantial education, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Kentucky in 1799, for several years a member of the General Assem- bly and was on the supreme bench of that State. In 1807 he removed to Nashville. In 1811, and again in 1813, he was elected to Congress. He sprang at once into na- tional prominence. His support of the war measures was energetic and effective. The Federalists denounced the war as one instigated by " Madison, Grundy, and the Devil." He resigned in 1814 and devoted himself to law. The Southwest has never produced another criminal lawyer of equal fame. He had a figure which was strikingly graceful and commanding, an open, refined face, a disposition of great affability. These personal qualifications, joined to a mellow flow of words which was impressive and which sparkled with antitheses, distin- guished also by occasional bursts of pathos that never failed to move the sensibilities of the jury, gave him an unvarying tide of success, the very momentum of which rendered him eventually invincible. He is said to have defended but one man who was afterwards hanged. The traditions which still linger among lawyers of some of the trials in which he played a part, show him to have been quiek of mind, full of stratagems and wiles, and not over- scrupulous in resorting to any method or expedient that was likely to save the neck of his client.
Bell, on the contrary, was a very young man, just thirty years of age. He had been in the legislature at Nash-
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ville, having served one term in 1817, declining a reëlec- tion. Devoting himself to law, he had established a rep- utation as a man of strong mind and solid parts. He had enjoyed the advantages of a classical education, and during the interval between 1817 and 1827 he had pur- sued, in addition to his practice at the bar, such studies as strengthened his powers and cultivated his tastes. He possessed an intellect of extraordinary vigor, broad in its scope and catholic in its sympathy. He tended too much towards speculative generalities, which detracted from his talents as a partisan leader. He was not without sub- tlety, and he could map out a plan of action with consum- mate skill. But he lacked the quickness of resolution and the dashing execution necessary in the guerilla warfare of political contests. His eloquence showed marks of polish, and his talents for speaking had been assiduously im- proved. On the stump, his powerful logie, his compre- hensive discussion, his thorough grasp of the political questions of the day, his terrible invective and noble and elevated tone of oratory made him the delight of his au- dience. On the floor of the lower house at Washington, all of these qualifications lifted him as an orator high above the head of every Tennessean who was his colleague during his active term of service. But he was not a mas- ter of the arts of rhetorical bushwhacking which make the debater. He was too composed, too slow in his move- ments, he required too elaborate preparation, he moved in an atmosphere too rarified. He was a prominent figure in the lower house, it is true, but he never gained the ascendency to which his eminent abilities justly entitled him. In 1841 he was appointed by Harrison secretary of war, but resigned the same year. For six years he was out of publie employment. Had his career closed here, it would have been an evil thing for his fame. But in 1847 he was a member of the legislature, and after pro- tracted balloting he was elected to the United States Sen-
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ate, of which body he was a member for the next twelve years. Here was the proper arena for the display of his talents. Here his eminent abilities, his melodious rheto- rie, the philosophie bent of his virile mind, the serene dig- nity of his bearing, and the perspienous quality of his logic shone with unelouded brightness. Here he was a distin- guished figure in a body of which Henry Clay, Lewis Cass, Salmon P. Chase, Stephen A. Douglas, John J. Crittenden, William Pitt Fessenden. John P. Hale, Ben- jamin F. Wade, Charles Sumner, Judah P. Benjamin, Jefferson Davis, and Andrew Johnson were members. His nomination by the Constitutional Unionists, in 1860, for the presidency was a natural climax to a life whose greatest intellectual triumphs had been gained in attempts to accomplish what divine foresight alone could see was impossible, the attempt to make fanaticism and moral right work in harmonious traces with self-interest and constitutional warrant.
When Bell and Grundy were candidates against each other, the latter apparently had every political advantage, joined to long service and a national reputation. Gen- eral Jackson electioneered actively for Grundy and voted for him. Bell was elected by an overwhelming majority and took his seat, feeling sore and mutinous. Jackson had offended the ablest mind which Tennessee has ever produced, after his own and Andrew Johnson's. Grundy was elected, however, two years later, to the Senate, to suc- ceed Eaton. It was charged that Jackson's preferences were consulted in this matter. In 1829 Jackson took: the oath as president of the United States. He appointed a cabinet. The man who, outside of Tennessee, had been most instrumental in making him president. was Martin Van Buren. In 1831 Jackson determined that that man should succeed him as president. He discovered that it was necessary to have all the political forces of his adminis- tration act in harmony and move in concert towards this
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common point in order to accomplish it. His election had been a rebuke to the system of using the patronage of the government for ulterior purposes. The method hereto- fore pursued was for the president to appoint to the sec- retaryship of state the successor apparent. Adams's ap- pointment of Clay had created the " bargain intrigue and corruption " storm. Jackson now allowed himself to be seduced from the true theory of his political career. But he contrived to draw a specious veil over his plans by ostentatiously establishing the rule that no member of his cabinet should be a candidate for the presidency. His attention had already been drawn to a possible candidate from Tennessee ; a man of unblemished reputation, of dis- tinguished merit, and of the highest talent. Jackson pro- posed to net two birds at once by turning Van Buren out of the cabinet and by drawing Hugh L. White into it. White refused. Jackson accepted this as a confirmation of his suspicions. He at once set in operation the entire force of his influence, but in vain. White had been his life-long friend, his stanchest supporter, his warmest ad- herent, his most trusted adviser. But unlike most of his compeers, White never lost his manly individuality of character. He was Jackson's friend, not his dependent, and he obeyed unhesitatingly the dictates of his own con- seience. During the debate on the tariff difficulties in 1832-33, Jackson sent for White, and requested him, who was speaker of the Senate pro tem., not to put Clay- ton of Delaware on the committee to which would be re- ferred the bills pending on this subject. Having already ordered his name to be entered on the "Journal " as a member of the committee, White refused. This strength- ened the estrangement between Jackson and White, an estrangement which gave this State to the Whigs and em- bittered the last days of the two great Tennesseans.
Viewed as a political organization, the distinctive fea- ture of the Jacksonians was a proscription never dreamed
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of by those who laid broad and deep the foundations of our government in tolerance, individual freedom, and brotherly love. In 1823 the " Nashville Whig" pub- lished some letters signed .. Boone " and "Viator," in which Jackson's candidacy for the presidency was dis- cussed in a temperate and a conservative tone. This was at once held up as evidence of hostile feeling, and a large number of subscribers adopted that method of punish- ment which is the delight of narrow minds and the amuse- ment of newspaper men. They refused to continue taking the paper. As Crockett said, to turn against Jackson was the unpardonable sin.
During the year 1833 the availability of White as a successor to Jackson became more patent. In Tennessee, Van Buren was unpopular in the highest degree. The Democrats saw in White a worthy successor to Jackson and the Whigs saw in him a high-minded statesman who would be unwilling to debauch the public service. In the autumn of 1833 the legislature of Tennessee desired to put him in nomination, but desisted at his earnest request. In the spring of 1834 Jackson, in a conversation with an intimate friend of White's, suggested that White should be vice-president on the ticket with Van Buren, and that after the latter had served eight years, White could then succeed him. Jackson also offered White a seat upon the supreme bench. White indignantly rejected every over- ture. It is probable that he would never have been a candidate, but some time in 1834 Jackson uttered the characteristic threat that if he did become a candidate for the presidency, he would be rendered odious to society. White determined at once to come forward regardless of all consequences. On the 19th of December, 1834, the members of Congress from Tennessee. with the exception of James K. Polk, Felix Grundy, David Crockett, and John Blair, met to consider White's candidacy. Luke Lea stated that Polk had promised to support White, and
1
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James Standifer answered for Grundy and Blair. Of Crockett there was no doubt. The next day the meeting addressed a letter to White, who replied, consenting to become a candidate. In the winter of 1834 the legisla- ture of Alabama put White in nomination.
The issue was now joined. At once the stream of ob- loquy began to rise. The " Globe " made a furious on- slaught on White, as a tool in the hands of one deeper and more designing than himself - one whose foul and deep-laid scheme it was to defeat Jackson's administration and strengthen the hands of his enemies. This of course was John Bell. Up to this time the rivalry between Polk and Bell had been purely personal. Bell, during the contest for the speakership in 1834, and his friends as a rule, protested that he was " as good a Jackson man as Polk himself." Polk had long desired to see Bell assume a position of antagonism to Jackson. The open warfare of the "Globe " which was certainly in harmony with Polk's desires, if not under his immediate direction, finally drove Bell into opposition, and removed from Polk's path the only enemy he feared in Tennessee. Jackson himself, who had used the machinery of a convention to force Van Buren on the Republican, now occasionally called the Democratic party, as vice-president, deter- mined to resort to the same means to make him president. In February, 1835, he wrote a letter advocating a national convention to nominate candidates for president and vice- president. In May the convention was held at Baltimore, and Van Buren was nominated. Tennessee refused to appoint delegates, and its vote was cast by one man, a chance bystander named E. Rucker, and Ruckerize be- came one of the political commonplaces of the day. A systematic plan for the purpose of destroying White's in- fluence in Tennessee, without the hearty support of which he was lost, was then devised. When White's candidacy was announced, the two Nashville papers at once declared
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for him. Letters were to be written for use in Tennessee, by Jackson. Bell was to be defeated for Congress. 1 Van Buren man was to be elected governor. White was to be defeated for the Senate. Jackson himself was to enter the canvass personally in Tennessee. A new paper was to be established at Nashville to oppose White and to denounce him as a Federalist. The contest was to be nar- rowed down to Jackson and White, and Van Buren was to be left out of the discussion. The most important of all these designs was to leave Van Buren in the back- ground and to bring on the struggle as between the two Tennesseans. Bell, who hoped indeed to see White elected, but who hoped above all things to break the su- premacy of the Jackson men in the State, managed the White canvass in so far as it had any management. He proclaimed on all hands the warmth of his and White's friendship for Jackson. The " Republican " called re- peated attention to the fact that Bell had supported all of Jackson's measures, that he had voted against the tariff of 1832, for the compromise of 1833, and the Indian and anti-nullification policy of his administration. In a speech made at Nashville, on the 23d of May, 1835, he frankly declares his design : "Opposition to the administration of General Jackson is the course the worst enemies of Judge White desire his friends to adopt. They are so anxious on this point that they appear determined to put Judge White and his friends in opposition whether they will or not. But, gentlemen, the friends of Judge White will adhere to General Jackson and his administration from consistency and respect for their own characters and be- cause they will be supporting their own principles."
In August, Jackson traveled through the State and in- augurated the campaign. He proclaimed in public that White was a red-hot Federalist, and that he was as far from his administration as the poles are asunder. Donel- son in Washington had incautiously declared that White's
i
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candidacy for the presidency would be made a contest be- tween him and Jackson. Blair of the " Globe " predicted that Judge White would be " as effectually and entirely crushed by General Jackson as if the foot of an elephant had been placed on him." The "Globe " studiously avoided the reiterated charge that Jackson was for Van Buren. Jackson wrote two letters to a man named Gwin, a parson, to be used against White. In the second, writ- ten on the 8th of August, 1835, he says in reference to the first Gwin letter, " I wrote it immediately on seeing the article in the . Republican,' and intended it as a re- buke of what I considered an unwarrantable use of my name to subserve the views of factious intrigues, seeking to undermine the course of Republicanism and to defeat the result of the leading measures of my administration." This was intended to repel the assertion made by the " Re- publican," that Jackson would prefer White to Van Bu- ren. He wrote other letters of like substance to Willie Blount and one to Felix Grundy which Cave Jolinson was in the habit of reading on the stump during his canvass.
The " Union" was established by the Jackson party at Nashville, and was edited with an energy of personal vitu- peration never before witnessed in Tennessee. It poured a steady stream of denunciation and doggerel against Bell and White and their adherents. About this time the name of Whig began to be applied to the White men. A toast at a dinner given to Jackson in August denounced the " new-born Whigs," a phrase recently coined by Jack- son, and the "Union " called White's supporters, " White
Whigs." But all these extraordinary exertions resulted in no measure of success. The press of the State was overwhelmingly for White - the proportion was seven- teen to seven. The Jackson men failed to make the issue between White and Jackson. and the people of Tennessee were filled with a profound veneration, a deep-seated af- fection, an earnest and almost sorrowful sympathy for the
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pure and noble character who had been caught in the toils of a wild and frenzied fight of factions. White meetings were held in almost every county, and the support of Ten- nessee was pledged with increasing and spontaneous en- thusiasm.
The first conspicuous failure in the Jackson programme was the result of the August elections. The return of John Bell was peculiarly galling. Caucus after caucus was held, letters were written, extravagant promises were made to induce some one whose standing and reputation gave some promise of success to come forward against him. But his defeat of Grundy had taught the politi- cians in his district a lasting lesson, and no one fit and available could be found. The towering genius of John Bell was not of the sort that could so easily be hawked at in its pride of place and killed. He had no opposition.
More than this. The candidates for the governorship were Governor Carroll, Newton Cannon, R. G. Dunlap who soon retired on account of ill health, and W. H. Humphreys who was for White, but who made no figure. Carroll was outspoken for Van Buren, though protesting that the presidential question should not be made an issue in this canvass. In 1834 the Constitutional Convention met. Under the old constitution, Carroll, having served three terms, was not again eligible. But his supporters declared that the new constitution, although not changing this rule, entirely abrogated the old, and that Carroll stood in the attitude of one who had never been governor. So great was his popularity that the leading White organs conceded his election. Newton Cannon, who had been chairman of a White meeting in Williamson County, and was personally obnoxious to Jackson, attacked Van Buren and declared his decided preference for Judge White. The leading White men took no open part. but Cannon was elected by a majority of about 7.000. So strong and uncompromising was the feeling for White, that Polk
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avowed on the stump his individual preference for White. He even went to extreme lengths and attacked the Balti- more Convention. He declared that the proceedings of that body had no more obligatory force on the party than the recommendations of any other equally respecta- ble men. The White .candidates carried the State by a large majority. When the legislature met, E. H. Foster, an outspoken White man, was made speaker of the House by acclamation. The Jackson men seemed unable to grasp the drift of things. The second day after the mem- bers assembled, each one found on his desk a copy of the "Globe's " extra edition, franked by Jackson himself and containing violent and almost scurrilous attacks on White's course during the last session of Congress on the Expunging Resolutions. The same day White was re- elected to the Senate by an almost unanimous vote. The motion to instruct him to vote for the Expunging Resolu- tions was laid on the table by a vote of 50 to 22. On the 17th of October the legislature, by a vote of 60 to 12, recommended White to the country as a man eminently qualified to fill the office of president.
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